CHAPTER XSKIRMISHING
Miriamhung up the telephone receiver with a dissatisfied frown. For the third time her talk with the nurse in Doctor Roberts’ office had been cut off, and her appeal to the local operator at Upper Marlboro for a clear line had brought no results. Moving away from the telephone table she stood hesitating in the center of the living room. Should she go back to her bedroom and lie down again, or go out for a walk? The latter alternative was the most inviting, although reason told her she should try to sleep. Sleep! She had tossed and turned on her pillow for two mortal hours and never closed her eyes. Always before her was the scene with Alexander Nash and Guy Trenholm. Later, her mind reverted to Betty Carter’s denial of her presence at Abbott’s Lodge. Twice she had been branded a liar—was she to sit down tamely under it?
Miriam ran softly upstairs to her room, her mind made up. Putting on her coat and hat, she hurried down the hall again, and heard, as she passed Mrs.Nash’s partly open bedroom door, the sound of a male voice addressing the sick woman. So Doctor Nash was with his wife! Miriam did not linger.
As she started to close the front door behind her, the telephone bell rang loudly and she hastily entered the living room. Her unexpected return was a trifle disconcerting to Pierre, the chauffeur, who had started from the pantry to answer the telephone. At sight of the nurse standing with the instrument in her hands, he ducked behind the newel post and kept carefully out of sight, while listening intently to what was said.
The call was from the operator at Upper Marlboro, and a second later Miriam was again speaking to Doctor Roberts’ office nurse. This time there were no interruptions and Miriam’s talk with the nurse was clear and, from her viewpoint, satisfactory. Ten minutes later Miriam was tramping across Abbott’s estate, careless as to the direction she was taking, providing it led away from the house of mystery.
Pierre slipped from behind the newel post in time to escape Martha as the latter went about her household work, a reluctant Anna in tow. The murder of Paul Abbott had created a sensation throughout the county, and, as the mystery surrounding the case deepened, the old hunting lodge gained a reputationfor ghosts and horrors which kept visitors at a respectful distance, the morbidly curious only daring to venture near it in the daytime. Anna had consented to “help out” provided she did not have to go above the first floor and could be taken home by Corbin in the Abbott car before nine o’clock in the evening. Pierre’s attentions, as he waited in the pantry, supplied a new thrill, which the country girl found a pleasant diversion from Martha’s sullen irritability and Corbin’s unwholesome leers.
It was approaching the luncheon hour when, from his seat by the kitchen window, Pierre perceived Alexander Nash and Corbin talking together on the roadway. Corbin, on his way from the woodshed with a wheelbarrow of wood, had stopped and set down his barrow at a sign from the clergyman. From his gesticulations, Pierre gathered that he was indicating the points of the compass, but the little chauffeur did not wait to see more. Martha’s back was turned as she put several pies in the oven, and Anna had gone for an instant into the servants’ dining room. Like a flash Pierre was out of the door and up the back staircase to the second floor. His low knock on Mrs. Nash’s door was answered by Betty Carter.
“Bonjour, Mademoiselle!“ he exclaimed, bowingrespectfully. “I came to inquire for the health of Madame.” His voice carried to Mrs. Nash’s sharp ears and she sat up in bed.
“Admit Pierre, Betty,” she directed. “I wish to speak to him.” At her imperious tone her niece opened the door still further and Pierre stepped inside. With a quick click of his heels, he bowed from the hips, his hands crossed before him, and then advanced.
“Madame is better!” And his respectful tone held a note of genuine relief. Mrs. Nash was a kind mistress and her servants were devoted to her. “Ah, Madame, I have been anxious—yes.”
“Thanks, Pierre.” Mrs. Nash was touched. She had, with Betty’s aid, slipped on a becoming dressing sacque, one of the articles brought from Washington by her husband the evening before, and her boudoir cap was attractively arranged. “Have you heard from Somers?”
“Yes, Madame. Doctor Nash directed her to take the afternoon train for Upper Marlboro, and I will be there to meet her,” explained the chauffeur. He turned to Betty. “Your bag, Mademoiselle, came by express just now and Corbin has placed it in your room.”
Mrs. Nash understood Betty’s quickly checked motion toward the hall.
“Run along, Betty, and see to your bag,” she said, good-naturedly. “I don’t need you in here every minute, and will ring the bell if I require anything,” touching the brass ornament which Martha had resurrected from a china cabinet for her use. “Well, Pierre, have you followed instructions?” she added in a lower key, as Betty vanished out of sight.
Pierre carefully closed the hall door and then came over to the bed, and placed a small paper in Mrs. Nash’s outstretched hand. Silently she read the few lines of familiar writing before addressing the expectant servant.
“Where did you find this?” she asked.
Pierre’s smile was illuminating. “Corbin has his price,” he admitted. “What next, Madame?”
Mrs. Nash sat up a trifle straighter and pointed to the bureau.
“You will find a roll of money in the top drawer,” she said. “Bring it over here.” Pierre complied with her directions so speedily that she had but a second in which to secrete the paper. Taking the money from the chauffeur, she handed him a generous sum. “Be watchful, Pierre,” she cautioned, as he put back the remainder of the bills in their place in the drawer. “Overlook nothing.”
“Oui, Madame.” Pierre halted on his way to thehall door, struck by a sudden idea. “The nurse, Mees Ward—”
“Well, what about her?” as he hesitated.
“She plans to leave to-night.”
Mrs. Nash’s color changed. “How do you know?” she demanded sharply.
“I heard her telephone to Doctor Roberts to bring another nurse to take her place.” Pierre explained, and then waited respectfully for her to address him.
Mrs. Nash viewed the chauffeur in silence and then glanced about the sunny room. It seemed suddenly cold and bare to her. When she spoke her voice had altered to a shriller key.
“As you go along the hall, Pierre, ask my niece to return,” she directed, and closing her eyes she laid down again, one hand stroking, as if for companionship, the tongue of the brass bell.
Miriam’s walk along the Patuxent River finally brought her to a bridge connecting the highway, and she paused to rest on its parapet. It was a rolling country and she had walked up hill and down dale before striking the river bank. She had put on her high boots for cross-country walking, but she had not found the ground as soft as she anticipated, the snow of four days before having entirely vanished except in a few sheltered nooks and crannies.
The view from the bridge diverted Miriam’sthoughts, and she studied the panorama spread before her with interest. Perched high on a hill close at hand was a colonial mansion, its white pillars and gabled roof a fair landmark to be seen for miles, while toward the valley nearer the river, and obviously on the same estate, was a low building, the architecture of which suggested a church or chapel.
Miriam was still speculating on her surroundings when she caught sight of a solitary horseman riding across the fields to her right. The man rode with the unmistakable seat of an American cavalryman, and horse and rider seemed one as they cleared the low fences and swung at last into the highway, headed for the bridge. As he crossed the bridge, Guy Trenholm checked his horse with such suddenness that a shower of mud bespattered Miriam, and his first words, instead of greeting, were an apology.
“Have I ruined your coat?” he asked, in deep contrition, as he sprang to the ground.
“A whisk-broom will remove the damage,” Miriam replied lightly. “No, please don’t try to rub it off!” as Trenholm drew out his handkerchief. “It must dry first. Where are you going in such a hurry?”
“Not going—returning,” he answered. “This is my bailiwick, that—” pointing in the direction fromwhich he had come—“is Anne Arundel County, and my jurisdiction ends at the river’s bank.”
“And you dignify that stream with the title of river?”
“Don’t be so scornful,” he protested. “To-day it is a stream, but in the War of 1812 the British men-o’-war sailed up it to this point, burned down the original colonial homestead yonder,” indicating the mansion Miriam had been admiring, “and sailed away again.”
Miriam was paying scant attention to his historical facts, instead she was considering his previous statement.
“So your jurisdiction ends at the river,” she repeated. “And a criminal has simply to run across the bridge to elude you.”
“If he is a fast runner,” dryly. Trenholm stroked his horse’s soft nostril, as the chestnut mare rubbed her head against his arm and nosed in his pocket for the apple and sugar she so dearly loved and always found. “Also, there’s a sheriff in Anne Arundel County. Are you returning to Abbott’s Lodge, or,” his eyes twinkled, “thinking of a sprint across Hills Bridge?”
“My conscience is clear,” she replied, “and I am on my way to the Lodge.”
“Then let me show you a short cut,” and, takingher consent for granted, Trenholm led the way off the high road and along a footpath, his mare walking contentedly along behind them. Miriam, a lover of horses, stopped every now and then to caress her, unconscious of the charming picture she made, her mind carefree for the moment, and her cheeks glowing from her long walk in the wind.
They had gone fully three quarters of the distance to the Lodge when the footpath took a sudden turn to the right and, crossing a wood, skirted a small graveyard. The unexpected sight caused Miriam to start slightly and she took in the air of desolation and the unkept appearance of the graves with a sense of depression which she strove to shake off.
“The Masons’ family burying ground,” explained Trenholm, observing her change of expression. “It is now part of Abbott’s estate. Not a very cheerful sight, is it?”
Miriam shook her head. “Not very,” she echoed, and paused idly to count the headstones, some still standing upright, while others, badly chipped and lichen-covered, reclined on the ground. “Twelve,” she announced.
“No, thirteen,” added Trenholm, pointing to a grave a little distance from the others and running obliquely to them.
“Surely, I didn’t see that one,” she exclaimed. “Why is it placed in that manner—outside the pale, so to speak?” and she touched a piece of rusty iron which had once formed the fence around the family plot. A number of other upright pieces of iron indicated the line it had once taken.
“It’s a suicide’s grave,” explained Trenholm. “There is an old superstition among the negroes that such a grave cannot be dug straight or on line with the others. Shall we walk on, Miss Ward?” and turning, he whistled to his mare, standing some distance down the path.
They were both rather silent, Miriam, her momentary lapse into her old, gay self, having dropped back into a depression deeper than before, while Trenholm watched her with an absorption of which he was totally unaware.
“I’m afraid you will be late for luncheon,” he remarked, happening to glance at his wrist watch as he put his hand on the bridle rein of the mare.
“It doesn’t matter,” she replied absently. “It won’t inconvenience them, for Martha doesn’t expect me. I should be asleep, you know.“
“You should indeed,” he said, and she wondered at his emphatic tone. “This is no preparation for night duty.”
“But I am not going on duty to-night,” she broke in. “I’m leaving the case.”
“What?” Trenholm stopped abruptly and eyed her in concern. “Fired?”
“No, indeed!” She flushed hotly. “Do you suppose I can take care of Mrs. Nash after her husband’s treatment of me?”
He did not answer at once. “So you are running away,” he commented softly. “Frankly, I did not expect it of you.”
“Mr. Trenholm!”
“Running away,” he reiterated, paying not the slightest attention to her indignant ejaculation. “Running away under fire.”
“Nothing of the sort!” she flared back. “Do you suppose I’ll stay in any house where I’ve twice been called a liar?”
“I’m afraid you’ll have to,” he retorted, with equal heat. “You cannot leave Abbott’s Lodge, Miss Ward.”
“What?” She gazed at him astounded. “Why not?”
“Because you are the last person known to have seen Paul Abbott alive,” he pointed out slowly. “And your statements regarding the events of Monday night are unsubstantiated.”
Miriam stared at him as if unable to believe her ears. “Do you insinuate I lied?” she demanded.
Trenholm’s hand on his horse’s rein tightened until the knuckles shone white, but his glance did not waver.
“It is not a question of my opinion one way or the other,” he said sternly. “You are our chief witness, and as sheriff of Prince Georges County, I cannot permit you to leave Abbott’s Lodge.”
Miriam regarded him intently. “So that is your attitude,” she said, finally. “I am glad to have it defined. You have, at least,” with a ghost of a smile, “been honest with me.”
“Thank you!” Trenholm drew a step nearer. “Your reasonable acceptance of the situation encourages me to ask a personal question.”
“Yes?” she prompted, as he paused. “Well?”
“What is your interest in the black seal?”
Miriam stared at him, thunderstruck. “The black seal?” she repeated.
“Yes—the seal which you have traced many times on paper,” and from his coat pocket he drew a number of papers, and held them so that Miriam could see the drawings she had made at odd moments while in the sick room. They were cleverly done—distinct and clear in every detail.
Miriam looked first at them and then up at Trenholm, standing silent and stern by her side.
“Those drawings were in my bag last night,” she stammered. “How did you get them?”
“I examined your bag,” calmly.
Her eyes were dark with anger. Twice her voice failed her. “You are impossible—intolerable—” she gasped, and turning ran toward Abbott’s Lodge, in her blind haste passing Alan Mason without recognition. The latter stopped and stared after her, then catching sight of Guy Trenholm standing patiently by his mare, he whistled softly to himself.